A social movement connected with a jihad terrorist group is not absolved of responsibility for the activities of that jihad terrorist group. It is aiding and abetting those activities by providing a human face for the organization's other inhuman activities. "Purpose of HLF's Charity Debated in Closing Arguments," from IPT News, November 10 (thanks to Cchyessa):
DALLAS – They sang praises to a terrorist group, had telephone access to its leadership and deceived the public about their true ambitions, a federal prosecutor said Monday about the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).Five former HLF officials are on trial for illegally routing millions of dollars in donations to Hamas through a series of Palestinian charities, known as zakat committees, that prosecutors say are controlled by the terrorist group.
In his closing argument, federal prosecutor Barry Jonas pointed to what he called the "highlights of the highlights" of the government's six-week case. It includes hundreds of exhibits, ranging from wiretapped telephone calls to audio and video conferences to stacks of bank records.
But the case likely hinges on whether jurors agree the zakat committees were controlled by Hamas. Jonas pointed to instances in which some committee officials were identified as Hamas members in media interviews and by other Hamas officials. Telephone records in evidence tied in other committee officials. And a former HLF fundraiser testifying for the government said that the zakat committees were a part of Hamas.
It's an assessment shared by the Palestinian Authority, Jonas noted.
The Hamas charter calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, to be replaced by a Palestinian state governed by Shariah, or Islamic law, Jonas said. It also calls for providing charity "to everyone who is in need of it."
Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor and terrorism expert, testified that a social wing has proven critical for successful terrorist movements throughout history.
Hamas has three branches, Jonas said, a military arm that carries out terrorist attacks, a social arm that wins hearts and minds of the population through charitable work, and a political arm that controls the money and sets policy.
Much of Jonas' argument was spent reviewing audio and video tapes in evidence. Rallies in which Hamas leaders appear or were praised were shown. A skit featuring defendant Mufid Abdelqader, who performed in a band at many of these functions, ended with him pretending to strangle an actor portraying an Israeli civilian.
‘I am Hamas o dear one," he said on the video....
There you have it.
Ironic. Just as we try again to take down the jihadists' support structure here and abroad, Obama is actively making overtures to HAMAS and to other implacable enemies of real peace and freedom. A sorrow and a pity.
What are the odds that a guilty verdict will be broadcast in the MSM? I really hope they nail them to the wall. It would be a major blow to the Ikhwan. Then we could just ban them in the United States. I realize that it wouldn't be that simple, but all the unindicted co-conspirators would be readily discredited, which would make their classification as terror groups easier to achieve.
A majority of the evidence in the trial was not given to dfendants under "secret evidence" rules.
Ten wire tapped conversations by IDF were tranlated by the Israelis and used in the initial indictment that shut down HLF and allowd the US Govt to seize its assets.
These ten statements were petitioned so original transcripts could be made. Finally the arm of the Government was bent behind them and they had to allow the ten wire taps into evidence.
Low and behold, all ten were fabrications...outright lies made by the IDF "translators".
Pathetic standard of evidence when the first ten wire tapped conversations used in the initial indictment turn out to be total lies.
The rest is what followed.
These people did nothing illegal.
It is just a witch hunt at the behest of the occupation forces.
Truth
Abdullah Mikail
Yep another example of war is deceit and the lunatic psycho behaviors of Mohammedans. Boy they just love killing and murder and hating non Muslims. I call the Islamic Jihadis a bunch of cowards who attack and kill women and children. The title of Islam is the murdering religion.
Mohammad's army of murdering thugs. Killing, raping and looting. What "religion" are we talking about? Islam, the death cult, hiding under the cloak of religion.
Prove it, Abdullard.
Wino,
You can read, right?
Okay, here, go read for yourself:
http://www.h4jusa.com/HLF_2007TrialArchive.aspx
I find the fact that the IDF threateened to
"Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Lawyers for the HLF defendants call their 1st witness, Edward Abington, formerly the U.S. State Department’s second-highest-ranking intelligence official. Mr. Abington is a 30 year senior U.S. diplomat who served as U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem from 1993 to 1997."
and later that day:
"Then Ms. Hollander asks Mr. Abington if he ever visited any ‘martyr’s’ families in Palestine.'
"He said yes. He said that and 11 year old boy was kicked to death by Israeli soldiers at an Israeli checkpoint and that he went to give his condolences to the family."
"He said that the IDF scolded him, and that he received threats that he would be assassinated. He said the threats were taken very seriously by the State Department in Washington D.C. and that they had to provide him with security 24-7 after that."
So the ingrate IDF threatened to Assassinate one of our own US State Department officers because he visited the family of an 11 year old boy who was murdered at a check point by IDF soldiers.
Kind of changes the focus of Israel as an Ally, doesn't it?
Truth
Abdullah Mikail
Wino,
Falsified translations of transcripts were used in the initial indictment. Here is explicit publication on the ten falsified translations:
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3916/1/84/?TopicID=2
"Pre-trial proceedings in the case have unearthed troubling problems with evidence. In February, the Los Angeles Times reported that declassified government documents show summaries of surveillance of Holy Land's former executive director erroneously claim he made explicit anti-Semitic comments."
"However, none of the quotes included in the summary were in the 13-page transcript of the conversation."
"Under the federal Classified Information Procedures Act, the defense attorneys are prohibited from sharing the material with their clients and thus unable to prove that the statements were never said or misunderstood."
"In March, the trial judge denied a defense request to declassify additional pages of FBI evidence so they could look for other such discrepancies. The defense attorneys have said they only have summaries for about ten percent of ten years worth of surveillance. "
Truth
Abdullah Mikail
Yeah, all that research by Steve Emerson and Douglas Farah is all made-up. Because they're IDF translators. Nefa.org is loaded with evidence used in this trial, as is IPT to a lesser extent. All those financial records were made-up, huh? The same ones that caused CAIR to shut up and leave Andrew Whitehaed alone were among them, no doubt. And those internal memos found in raids? They'll get nailed to the wall.
Amen, amen, Brother Jdamn. Nail'em, the hateful Islamist Ikhwan bastards. But what about the gutless, obsequious, see- hear- speak-no-evil Obama Justice Department? God have mercy!
Look, I know the Elect-of-God hasn't been inaugurated and his cabinet sworn-in yet, but I think Obama will name a Ramsey Clark type as Attorney General, and where do you think we'll be then, when the War On Terror is consigned to the oblivion of willful blindness?
John C,
Jdamn is a woman. Abnd by the way, the evidence I pointed to is in the judicial record for your review..it isn't the locker room jargon and high fiving from Jdamn...it is the hard evidence.
Financial records? You question those...so did the prosecution which was crushed and humbled when they could not prove any impropriety.
So whether or not you and Jdamn do your little end zone dance in pairs or alone it doesn't matter...your arguement lacks substance.
Truth
Abdullah Mikail
Ignore That Silly Evidence: Terrorism Trial
by Ruth Calvo
Yesterday I spent many hours at the closing moments of the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, an exercise in the occupied White House trying to convince twelve jurors from Dallas that Holy Land Foundation was supporting terrorism.
Specific charges were brought against Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammed El-Mezain. As posted previously, this is part of an ongoing effort by this government to prosecute charities for support of terrorism, and effort which has failed in previous cases filed.
I missed Monday, thankfully, a day in which the prosecution played about 3.5 hours of videotapes of undetermined date showing performances of dances and skits which protest against the Israeli occupation. Prosecutor Jonas made the statement, quoted by the Dallas Morning News report, that Holy Land Foundation was making widows and orphans rather than supporting them.
Throughout the trial, I have seen the prosecution equate terrorism - that America is supposed to fear, and use its resources to combat - with anti-Israel feelings. Defense witnesses have been brought in to elucidate the jury about the Middle East conflict and the prevalence of standard songs, dances and skits in festivals where nationalism is invoked for Palestine.
All of us are learning a great deal about the conditions in Palestine, where three quarters of the population live on less than $2 a day, and unemployment has reached 33%. In 1995 Hamas was designated a terrorist organization, and the Holy Land Foundation asked for guidance on how to support charitable activities in the Middle East without violating U.S. law. HLF made overtures to the Treasury and Department of State, and the Israeli government, to get solid guidelines. They got mixed messages, and little guidance.
We have also learned that in the predominantly Muslim Middle East, zakat committees carry out a lot of the charitable organization, representing the needy and delivering aid. The word zakat refers to one of the five pillars of Islam, and refers to the practice of giving 2.5% annually for the poor, which Muslims regard as basic religious observance.
A crucial contention of our government is that the donations to zakat committees from HLF constitute support of terrorism. The prosecution brought in unidentified Israeli agents, one of them an intelligence specialist "Avi" who insisted that the zakat committees are controlled by Hamas. As the defense pointed out in closing statements, this unknown quantity without credentials insisted that it was common knowledge that Hamas controls the zakat committees, that he was an expert who could "smell" out Hamas. The defense witness, former Consul General in Israel Abington, with documented credentials that include daily briefings from the U.S., dealt with zakat committees constantly during his several tenures representing the U.S. and was given free rein to do so from our government. He had been enjoined from ever dealing with Hamas.
One of the government's witnesses, McBrien, former official in the terrorism department of Treasury, was questioned about what organizations were part of the designated terrorist network, and what information should be relied on by charities to make sure that charitable donations wouldn't be confused with support of terrorism.
He assured the jury that the list in existence wasn't to be taken as the only source, that any groups could be included and that the government didn't need to give specific names. Text he quoted from the Treasury Department documents sent to advise HLF that they were liable to charges of supporting terrorism if they supported listed groups with donations. One section, read aloud in court, stated that the listed groups were not the only ones that were involved, and the charity was responsible for terrorism support if they chose other, wrong, groups and the government thought they, too, were improper recipients.
As the defense established in cross-questioning in trial, and reiterated yesterday, the section that McBrien insisted made HLF responsible for its choice of certain zakat committees was inserted after HLF had disbanded, in 2001. The prosecution yesterday in closing, by attorney Jacks, countered that ... the jury should rely on its own memory. Stating that he had heard so many details from the defense that he'd "stopped trying to write it down", Jacks said he didn't believe much of the defense had ever been presented, and "if you don't recall, you're probably right". He continued to insist that just because the designation of Hamas as terrorist hadn't happened until after proven support by HLF, it was like saying that having dealt drugs for years was only illegal after the government declared it illegal.
I'm serious.
Jacks entered a defense wrap-up that condemned Hamas for interfering with the Oslo peace accord, and HLF members for expressing what was construed as hatred for the Israeli occupiers. He claimed that freedom of speech did not apply, as their speech showed a state of mind. The U.S., Jacks went on, wants peace in the world and that is our general nature. "Other countries use that to blame the U.S. and say 'that's why we're opposed to you'", said Jacks. I walked out shortly after he claimed that no one was better able to tell the jury about zakat committees because as an Israeli security agent "that's his job."
The prosecution attorney told the twelve citizens chosen to represent the U.S. in deciding whether Muslim charity constitutes terrorist support, that juries of citizens decide matters like this all the time, and that defense reminders of the seriousness of the matter under consideration should be passed over.
Much of the evidence was gained by FISA wiretapping, which produced over almost ten years of 24 hours a day, mountains of tapes and transcripts. As the defense pointed out yesterday, from all that taxpayer supported effort the government introduced into evidence at trial some few skimpy pages that it insists support its case against those men it has charged with intentionally using the charity as a front to encourage and abet Hamas in terrorism.
It is impossible without making this unmanageable as a post to go into the amount of evidence I sat through, and I have definitely come out of the trial disgusted with the government case. The prosecution made its case to a jury yesterday that I felt had been insulted by them. The simple-minded claim that evidence presented by defense attorneys was just too much to register, that their memories should be relied on instead, reduces a jury to applause generators who vote for the Idol of the moment because they like a presentation best.
The government I saw in action yesterday is a disgrace, and proof positive that the Department of Justice has been badly damaged by the executive branch that has so besmirched this country's good name.
If we can't be represented by dignified, intellectually capable, attorneys in a trial concerning terrorist activities, we are horribly betrayed.
News at Muslim Legal Fund of America
A few closing thoughts on the HLF and Middle East conflict:
First, and let me be very clear about this, our brothers and the organization they represent (HLF) did nothing wrong! May ALLAH (swt) bless them for having the heart and courage to do as much as they could to help alleviate the suffering of our Palestinian sisters and brothers. May ALLAH (swt) fortify them and their families in this time of challenge; and may ALLAH (swt) bless this struggle with a victorious conclusion.
That said, sitting in the courtroom yesterday, I was struck (once again) by the argumentation on both sides. The defense attorneys were very effective in pointing out the holes in the government's case, and in projecting salient facts through these gaping holes. Despite this, however, I found myself longing for the type of closing argumentation that I witnessed last year, at the Chicago trial of Mohammad Salah and Dr. Abdelhaleem Ashqar.
In that particular trial, Michael E. Deutsch and Bill Moffitt gave the best closing arguments (in a case involving Muslims) that I've heard to date. The defendants in that trial, Salah and Ashqar, are also Palestinian Muslims who were charged with similar offenses as the brothers on trial in the Holy Land Foundation case. (In fact, Dr. Ashqar's name has repeatedly come up in this trial.)
The Chicago courtroom, however, received a valuable lesson in history (both early American and post 1948 Palestine history), in human rights and international law, and in the sociology of global conflict; and these lessons were delivered by Jewish and African American defense attorneys unafraid of speaking TRUTH TO POWER.
When I read yesterday's report on the HLF trial in the Dallas Morning News ("Summations tell jury: Don't look at Politics," pg 3B), and specifically what the report had to say about the closing arguments of Theresa Duncan, attorney for former Holy Land Foundation CEO Shukri Abu-Bakr, I was slightly taken aback. In an otherwise excellent summation, she reportedly said to the jurors, "No one disputes that Hamas is a terrorist organization." When I read this, my immediate reaction was not only to reject Duncan's assertion (no matter how well intentioned it was), but to hearken back to an observation made by Jewish attorney Deutsch, in his summation in that memorable Chicago trial last year. He stated:
"There is no question that the Palestinian people have suffered - and after 1967 it got worse, leading to the first intifada (uprising in 1967)... Hamas is not anti-Jewish; it's anti-occupation, anti-oppression."
Sitting in the courtroom yesterday, listening to a different government prosecutor make his final rebuttal to the jury (after the defense had concluded their closing orations), I was struck by the almost Orwellian nature of the messages embedded in the government's final arguments.
On Monday, prosecutor Barry Jonas argued from one side of his mouth that the case should not be taken as a referendum on the conflict in the Middle East. "You're not going to decide who's right and who's wrong in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," he said. (source: Dallas Morning News). He then proceeded to replay several videos of HLF fundraisers in the U.S., which reportedly featured songs with lyrics praising martyrdom and jihad, and glorifying Hamas.
Prosecutor Jonas concluded his remarks to the jury on Monday by accusing the HLF of being "part of a larger plan to eliminate the state of Israel and take over their land. By supporting Hamas, they helped create widows and orphans. Find them guilty!"
In his final remarks to the jury yesterday, prosecutor Jim Jacks also provided the court with his own deeply flawed [post 1948] recap on this never-ending Zionist-imposed conflict. In Jacks' all too familiar narration, the Palestinian resistance (currently led by Hamas) is always out to "kill Jews," while Israel is always "defending itself." He culminated his summation with the charge that "The Holy Land Foundation is Hamas in America!"
Listening to this government prosecutor, I thought of President George Washington's prescient Farewell Address to the Union, specifically as it pertains to the "evils" that would result from America having the exact type of "relationship" as it has with the State of Israel today. I also thought about [African American defense attorney] Bill Moffitt's closing remarks in that memorable Chicago trial last year:
"How does it feel to be a Palestinian who can't change his or her own reality in their own country, and you have no idea when the oppression will stop? How can Palestinians tell their story? We have a right to hear both sides, and make a decision on the merits for ourselves... The Palestinians are going to win. The advance of human history favors freedom."
Getting back to issues raised in the forwarded article above ("Obama Told Not to Fear Jewish Lobby"), I am encouraged by the formation of J Street, and by the 31 congressional candidates (reportedly "adopted by the organized Jewish peace camp") who defeated their opponents in the recent elections. I am even more encouraged by the peace and justice-loving citizens of America who are becoming more aware, and more outspoken, on this contentious issue; non-Muslim citizens like those who sat in on parts of the HLF trial.
(After court proceedings ended yesterday, I conducted short interviews, outside the courthouse, with a number of the non-Muslim attendees that I met in the courtroom. I will transcribe the material later today and send it out, insha'Allah.)
In conclusion, I share the hope of Gideon Levy and Sr. Noor Elashi (daughter of one of the HLF defendants), that Obama will be a different kind of politician on this contentious issue. I am a realist, however. I am fully aware that the best chance we have for President-elect Barack Hussein Obama to come down FULLY on the right side of history, on this long simmering yet misunderstood issue, is if he receives well organized and sustained pressure from the good people of America (and the world) to do so!
May God help us, to help him.
El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
Ladies and gentlemen
the two screeds that A. M. has posted for our consideration are classics of their kind.
Use mental tongs when handling, for your health and safety.
Posters and lurkers who read French are urged to consult the chapters entitled 'Antizionism and Antisemitism' and 'Propaganda', in Jacques Ellul's 'Un Chretien Pour Israel', 1986 (read the rest if you like, the whole book is very instructive and immunised me, permanently, against the Arab Muslim disinformation campaign concerning Israel); having read those, you may then, if you like, return to Ruth Calvo's sweetly poisonous little piece and the equally nasty item by the Muslim, El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan, and amuse yourself by taking them to pieces.
I suggest, if you are new here, that you also consult Martha Gellhorn's classic article, 'The Arabs of Palestine', 1961:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/196110/gellhorn
and learn some things you didn't know before; John Roy Carlson's book 'From Cairo to Damascus', a first-hand account of the fighting in and around the state of Israel in 1947 and 1948, is also very illuminating.
One point to bear firmly in mind is that Arab Muslim (and, indeed, non-Arab Muslim) hatred of, and contempt for, Jews qua Jews, is present from the very beginning of Islam and has been manifested in texts and in on-the-ground behaviour, for 1300 years.
Until the re-foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, Jews within the Muslim world were a defenceless dhimmi community, despised, exploited, used and abused without mercy, dehumanised, slandered, even in some places reduced to the status of chattel slaves, and periodically subjected to mass murder or forced conversion on the grand scale.
They had absolutely no right to self-defence and they had no equality with Muslims before the law; indeed, their testimony against a Muslim was...worthless, such that Muslims could, and did, wrong them with absolute impunity.
The Muslim hatred for the Jewish state of Israel, a hatred of unparallelled viciousness, is the hatred of the Dominator/ Abuser who must watch his former victim and human chew-toy, the one whom he was formerly free to torment ad libitum even unto death, walking tall in the sunlight...armed.
Defense smokescreen at the HLF trial cast aside, the truth of HAMAS' raison d'entre is spelled out clearly in its Charter. In this light, it's clear what "resistance" to "occupation" and "oppression" means--a genocidal conspiracy to dispossess and drive-out the Jewish population of the Holy Land, and killing as many as possible in pursuit of that end.
Jews have virtually always lived in Palestine. Greater Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority since 1860. Especially since the late 19th [Christian] Century, Jews have settled there, a million alone seeking refuge from Arab Muslim lands, in the face of persecution, genocide, and expulsion elsewhere. They have created a nation-state with a solid moral right to exist, a right which all the intolerant Adullah Mikails of this world won't concede, as it is an affront to their wretched Islam. It is the Jews' historic homeland and the cradle of Judaism (and of Christianity, which it engendered).
TRUTH.
T R U T H !
Therefore, submit.
Accept. Yield.
From the Hamas Charter,
Reiterating:
It is really sad that 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name. When, oh, WHEN, is our CORRUPT legal system EVER going to reinstate PUNISHING lawyers WHEN THEY LIE IN COURT??????????????
EVERYONE, even Hamas, knows that Hamas is a terrorist organization.
Tt Rr Uu Tt Hh !!